Politics, Power and Spectacle in Shakespeare

The Shakespeare Society of India will host its International Conference on 7-8 March 2019 at Kirori Mal College, Delhi University

We invite you to send in your abstracts for conference. The timeline is as follows:

Expressions of Interest with Potential Title: 15th October 2018Submission of Abstracts: 10th December 2018Notification of Selected Abstracts: 31st December 2018Submission of Full Papers: 15th February 2019

Concept Note:

Shakespeare’s plays were written hardly fifty years before the English Civil War. Tudor monarchs had somewhat consolidated the monarch’s power but the gentry and Parliament were becoming increasingly assertive. Social unrest and riots were common. Religious polarisation made Catholics appear like foreign agents and Puritans as potential radicals. As coloniser England faced problems in asserting its rule in Ireland. To maintain and legitimise its power the monarchy used not only force but also cultural and ideological means. Rulers were portrayed as ‘wedded to England,’ ‘Father to the Nation’ or hedged by the divine right of kings. Monarchs deployed pageantry, masques and spectacle on the one hand, and spies, surveillance and punishment on the other. The period was a peak time for conspiracies and charges of treason punished with executions and torture. Clearly the head that wore the crown felt much uneasiness. The Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre puts political issues literally centre-stage. Shakespeare’s history plays helped redefine the monarchy and nation; they created a sense of patriotism and nationhood and equally depicted disaffection and rebellion. Presenting kings on stage both affirmed and put into question their royal authority: are kings merely actors? Shakespeare’s tragedies analyse questions of kingship and power and the Roman plays explore the forces that determine the course of history and politics. Women often seem marginalised or disruptive in these plays. Are they more powerful in the comedies where the presence of dukes and rulers ensures that questions of power do not disappear? Suggestions for paper topics are as follows but are not confined to these alone:

• How is power gained and legitimised?

• Power, kingship and theatrical spectacle

• Power and masculinity; women and political power, agents or victims?

• Master and man: changing concepts of service and duty

• Shakespeare and political theories of the time, Machiavellian realpolitik, homilies, King James etc.

• Commons and rebels: social conditions as reflected in Shakespeare’s plays